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thedrifter
10-02-05, 05:03 AM
Sunday, October 2, 2005
Barn mural honors Marine who died in Iraqi bombing
By Jennifer Edwards
Enquirer staff writer

SABINA - Duane Richard never met fallen Marine Brett Wightman, who died in August along with four other Greater Cincinnati Marines in a bomb attack in Iraq.

But the young artist was so moved by Wightman's sacrifice, he put his talent to use honoring him.

First, Richard painted signs reading: "Thank you, Brett," that lined several front yards along Wightman's funeral procession through this close-knit Clinton County community.

A few days later, Richard visited the Marine's grave. He cried and vowed to make sure no one forgot Wightman.

So Richard painted a 30-foot-wide mural of the 22-year-old on the side of a barn on his parents' land along on Snow Hill Road. He lined the image with 13 American flags - one for each of the other Marines killed in the same attack.

"You can just stare right into his eyes," Richard said. "A true American hero."

With each stroke of his brush amid gallons and gallons of paint, Richard came to understand how Wightman was fulfilling his life's dream by serving in the military.

When the Marine's family and friends heard about the project, they came to watch him paint. They told him their Brett stories. They brought him food and soda.

Brett's father, Keith Wightman of Washington Court House, brought Richard a color photo of his son so Richard could see the how blue his eyes had been.

"I painted his face twice," said Richard, 30, of Wilmington, who works full-time painting and sandblasting signs at a Kettering design shop.

About 10 people a day stopped to gaze at the mural, take pictures and talk.

Wightman's mother, Pam Saville, drives past it every day. It gives her the strength to get through a nightmare year. First, she and her husband split up. In April, her mother died. Then, the war in Iraq claimed her only son.

Wednesday, two large boxes of his belongings arrived at her house. She quietly put a bag of letters he received from her and others in a drawer. She won't read them. They were his.

On Friday, she got out of the car at the barn for the first time. She stared at the face she will carry in her heart until the day she dies.

"Brett would be laughing at this," she said. "He would have said, 'Are you believing this, Mom?' When people say my son will never be forgotten, I think this is what they mean. Brett will never be in the past."

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com

Ellie